4638. Walter Savage Landor to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 252–254.
[Florence]
Sunday Morning [Postmark: 1 April 1860]
My dear Browning,
I feel confident that Mrs Browning has not been annoyed by the flippant criticism in the Athenæum. The writer would have acted more civilly and judiciously if he had referred to her whether the rhymes, which are so amusing in Hudibras, [1] are suitable to graver poetry. Swift, who was an adept in them, confined them to the satirical, and never, when he was most familiar, presented them to Stella [2] or Vanessa. [3] I seldom read a criticism on poetry, and it was only a name I so highly respect which induced me to look at any in the Athenæum. I pass the greater part of my time with Shakespeare. If I live to go through his wonderful works, I propose to learn greek over again and to take a turn with Homer. Much of the Odyssea stil remains in the higher chambers of my brain, and it is only a few months ago that I repeated in my sleep the noble speech of Sarpedon in the Iliad– [4] When I awoke, I could repeat the few first lines only. What will become of me if I survive my senses with the old Greeks? Perfect grace and elegance must captivate me once more. I must play with Lesbia’s sparrow, [5] and warn Delia to be a good girl and have an eye on Nemesis. [6] Ovid has never been praised sufficiently. What poet, excepting Shakespeare, displays such an imagination? In facility he is equalled only by Ariosto. But Ariosto could not have written the contest of Ajax and Ulysses. [7] After the banishment of poor Ovid, [8] tho’ millions of latin verses were written, all the poetry might be compressed in a dozen pages.
I have said this in some latin verses, [9] which I shall transcribe for Mr Fields to publish, with the last Hellenics and a score of smaller things in english—scraps unearthed lately; some few fresh. I saw Miss Blagden yesterday. She mentioned that Mrs Browning was much distrest at the intelligence of Mrs Jameson’s death. It appears to have been sudden. What a blessing! and what fools are they who pray against it!– Every day I lose some scrap of poetry. The last of what I published has never reacht me. What Mr Forster said he could find no conveyance for, I did not expect. The letter, which you mention can not be found either at Casa Guidi or the postoffice– No matter. If Mr Fields remains at Rome, pray let him bring to me what you have of my poetry. I have found enough to make a volume of two hundred pages. I have carefully revised what I found—some, however, I threw into the fire. Remember me to all my friends at Rome, and believe me ever
Yours W S L—
Address: Robert Browning Esq / 28. Pr: Piano– Via del Tritone / Roma.
Publication: BBIS-5, pp. 28–29 (as 3 April 1860).
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Hudibras (1662–78), a mock-heroic poem by Samuel Butler; it satirizes the Puritans and features comical and grotesque rhyming.
2. Esther Johnson (1681–1728), Jonathan Swift’s longtime intimate friend to whom he addressed poetry and with whom he conducted a lively correspondence, which was published as A Journal to Stella (1766).
3. Esther Van Homrigh (1688–1723), known as “Vanessa,” was romantically attached to Swift. His “Cadenus and Vanessa,” written for her, attempted to cool her passionate feelings for him.
4. The Iliad, V, 471–492. Sarpedon, a Trojan ally, urges Hector to rally his other allies in the defense of Troy.
5. The subject of two poems by Gaius Valerius Catullus (84–54 B.C.): The Poems of Catullus, II and III, trans. F.W. Cornish. The sparrow is the pet of the poet’s lover, the latter named Lesbia in many of his poems. Her real name is said to have been Clodia, a married Roman lady who, evidently, toyed with the affections of the poet.
6. Delia and Nemesis were the subjects of several poems by Albius Tibullus (48?–19 B.C.); Elegies, I and II, trans. J.P. Postgate. They were fictitious names of actual lovers.
7. In Troilus and Cressida, II, 3, 158–266.
8. Ovid (43 B.C.–18 A.D.) was banished by Emperor Augustus in 8 A.D. to Tomis, or Tomi (now Constanta), on the Black Sea in present day Romania. The causes of Ovid’s exile were said to be the publication of his Ars Amatoria (its instructions on the getting and keeping of mistresses probably offended Augustus) and some misstep involving the emperor’s family.
9. Untraced.
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